take another drink
by a.lakewood
Summary: One-shot future!fic, kind of AU of 'The End.' Dean reflects on his failures. 'You can't let go, even if it's killing you to hold on.'


**Title**: take another drink  
**Author**: alakewood  
**Warnings**: Spoilers up through _The End_ - kind of AU of that episode.  
**Rating**: PG-13 – for some slightly dark themes.  
**Word** **Count**: ~1300  
**Summary**: Future!fic. Dean reflects on his failures.  
**Disclaimer**: As always, I own nothing.

**oxoxo**

Go ahead, take another drink. Numb yourself to your failures as a son and a brother.

You raise the bottle to your lips and drink deep, the alcohol burning, hot licks of flame, as it slides down your throat. It's bottom-shelf something, clear liquid in a dusty, clear bottle, the label torn away. It was half-full when you found it, but you're not picky. Not anymore. Not when you just want to be numb.

When you wake up from this latest binge – if you wake up at all – you'll move on to the next ruined building just outside the Croat zone and pretend to plot how you're going to save the world. Then you remember: you passed up the opportunity to be mankind's savior without a second thought. You remember -

But you'd rather forget. So you finish the bottle, let the last of the alcohol scorch its way down, and welcome the hazy slant of your filthy room.

**oxo**

The room is spinning before you even realize that you're awake. The sunlight streaming through the gap in the crooked blinds burns bright streaks across your sight that's visible even when you close your eyes. Your head throbs and every inch of your body feels leaden and dead, but you pull yourself up anyway and reach for your gun. Croats won't kill themselves.

**oxo**

You finally make it out of the Midwest. The further you get away from Detroit, the more distance you put between you and what's happened in the past two years, the longer you can stand being sober. It's not like you have much of a choice, though. You need to be sharp, in top form, now that you're venturing into the uncharted territory outside the safe zone.

It's been a month – the longest month of your _life_ - since you've taken a drink and, considering that you've spent most of it in southern Louisiana along the Gulf, you think that's a pretty impressive feat. There's more liquor in one abandoned bar than you've come across since the Croatoan epidemic broke out.

**oxo**

You find a cell of Croats holed up in an old plantation house just outside of Nashville that doesn't look any better than some of the condemned buildings you've squatted in in cities between New Orleans and Detroit. You've been staking the place out for a couple of days, trying to get patterns down before you go in with guns blazing. Every one of the bastards is accounted for except the younger kid – the one that reminds you of Adam. That's probably the reason you finger falters on the trigger when he comes around the corner in the hallway and finds himself chest-to-barrel with your sawed-off.

In the time it takes you to recover your composure, he's already talking. Talking about Sam – it's the first time you've heard your brother's name aloud since you talked to Bobby before the cell towers went down – but as soon as the word passes the Croat's lips, he's got a hole clean through his chest.

**oxo**

It seems fitting that Sam - _Lucifer_, you have to remind yourself – has taken up Lawrence as his headquarters. After all, it's where this whole twisted journey began.

It's been three years since the last time you saw him and it takes you by surprise, hitting you a lot harder than you thought it would. It prompts you to find a bottle of Jack and you attempt to drink yourself into oblivion as all your miserable failures resurface and taunt you, but somehow they remain unaffected by the whiskey.

It all goes back to Lawrence.

No matter how you look at it, it's your fault that your mother died that night. When Cas sent you back, you told her and Samuel where Azazel would be striking next. If you could've just kept your mouth shut and gone after the demon yourself, she never would've been there. Azazel never would have met her and become so...infatuated. He wouldn't have possessed Samuel and killed Deanna or killed John to force Mary to make her deal. You think of the fire and it makes you think of Jess.

Jess. She'd still be alive if you hadn't drug Sam away from Palo Alto, he would've been there with her. The years that followed never would've happened and Sam would've had the life he'd dreamed about. You could've found your father on your own, but you didn't _want_ to do it by yourself. If you're completely honest about it, you'd been looking for ways to get in touch with Sam since your father pushed him away.

And, your dad. That one hits you hard, like a sucker-punch in the gut. He traded his life for yours. There's more ifs than you can count that led to that point.

The failure that conflicts you the most is Sam. If you'd just let him die in Cold Oak, if you hadn't bargained away your soul, the Apocalypse wouldn't have begun. But he's your brother and after the two years you'd spent on the road with him, you couldn't imagine living your life any other way – especially not after losing your father. But, still. If you hadn't made your deal, you never would've climbed off Alastair's rack to torture helpless souls. The end of the world started with you.

Then there's Adam. You couldn't save him. There's not a single scenario in which you could have.

Every one you have ever loved has been burned; or – you think of Sam – worse... You see their faces every time you close your eyes. They're not ghosts, but they haunt you just the same. And, even if it was due to something supernatural and not just your guilt, you know that you'd never try to find whatever speck of their former lives that still lingered and burn it – you can't let go, even if it's killing you to hold on.

**oxo**

You come face-to-face with Lucifer just as you always knew you would. Sam looks just as he did the last time you saw him back before everything went down in Detroit. He tells you his plans for the world and you almost want to believe him, just because you can't see past _Sam_. But you know better than to believe in his grandiose speech of human survivors living in peace with a demon race.

You expect him to kill you where you stand but he obviously realizes you're no threat to him – the Angels have long since withdrawn their army from Earth, so it's not like you're still in the running to be Michael's vessel, even if you were willing.

_You_ finally realize that you're never going to get your brother back. You can't kill Lucifer without killing Sam, too, and you just can't do that. You'd rather die, but every time you lift your Colt...you can't pull the trigger. You're scared, a coward.

So, when Lucifer dismisses you and disappears, you retreat to the house you once lived in as a kid. You hole yourself up in the room that was where Sam's nursery would have been, the room where your mother died. You lean against the wall, head falling back and thudding hollowly against the plaster, and beg, slowly sliding down to a crouch. You beg.

But your desperate pleas and futile prayers fall on the deaf ears of a God you're not sure you even believe in. And, even if He does exist, why should He listen? What have you sacrificed? You wouldn't even be breathing right now if you hadn't brought on the end of the world. Is there nothing in your life that you haven't been at fault for?

**oxo**

Every tragedy that has happened to you or those that you loved in the past thirty years comes back to you. So yes, go ahead and take another drink.


End file.
